Night Rider Provision in a Legal Contract?

A Night Rider provision is a colloquial expression for a provision buried in an executory contract that prevents one of the parties from publicly disclosing activity or conduct of the counterparty even if such activity or conduct is unlawful, abusive, or otherwise violative of an applicable law or of commercial or civil norms. The provision may even seek to threaten the party with monetary damages if they even disclose the existence of the contract itself or of the Night Rider provision therein. In some cases, the abused person may also be warned that the disclosure prohibition even survives the termination of the contract itself.

Like the Ku Klux Klan (aka “night riders”) after the Civil War who sought to intimidate blacks and other targeted groups by acts carried out under the cover of night or disguise, Night Rider provisions have no other purpose other than to isolate and intimidate the person being abused by such a provision, by threatening penalty or harm should the party dare to disclose the unlawful or abusive acts buried within the context of the contractural arrangement to the appropriate authorities or to the public.  

During a contractural agreement review of any kind, parties should always remain vigilant and must always remain willing to call out, and challenge "Night Rider" types of provisions as being void and unacceptable terms. One Hundred and ten years ago, Justice Louis Brandeis famously observed that “sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants” in response to the “wickedness of people shielding wrong-doing” and passing themselves off as honest men.

References

This article "Night Rider Provision in a Legal Contract?" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:Night Rider Provision in a Legal Contract?. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.

---